The blade comes slowly to rest on his cheek, carrying several days of a thick beard.
Jan holds the razor handle himself.
Today, he feels capable of it, even if he knows that he must spare his efforts.
In his nostrils, a tube still delivers the oxygen that his lungs lack.
Wires connect it to machines with incessant beeping.
For a week, this sales manager has been hospitalized here, in the intensive care unit of the Bichat hospital in Paris (18th arrondissement), a benchmark in the management of infectious diseases.
Jan is 46 years old, slim, athletic and very careful.
A "good citizen", he says, who follows the instructions to the letter and does not know how the Covid-19 virus entered his home, and so heavily into his body.
From the school of his two daughters?
From the office?
Of the twenty beds in this resuscitation service with tired walls, sixteen were occupied by patients with the coronavirus when we spent several hours there this Friday, October 9.
Four days earlier, it was eleven.
Gradually, the deterioration of the health situation in France - more than 16,000 new cases recorded in 24 hours on Sunday - is felt on the healthcare system.
The number of people in intensive care (1,483 Sunday) is approaching that of March 21, a few days after the entry into force of confinement.
Hospitalized in a sheave in Bichat for a week, Jan, a 46-year-old Covid patient, is regaining his strength, but “every day is a new step that should not be burned out” ./LP/Arnaud Dumontier
In the next fortnight, "caregivers will be put to the test," warned Jean Castex this Monday, October 12 in the morning, before the probable announcement of new restrictions by President Emmanuel Macron, who is due to speak on Wednesday during 'a televised interview on TF 1 and France 2. The Prime Minister preaches a convinced: "The noose is tightening, lightning will soon fall on our face", fears Professor Jean-François Timsit.
The boss of the sheave in Bichat has already started pushing the walls, by dealing with the beds available in the continuing care unit, which takes care of patients who are a little less critical.
He also asked for transfers to less "tense" establishments south of Paris, but the latter too are seeing their gauge fill up.
Now, the positivity rate in Ile-de-France has reached 17%, 11.5% throughout the territory.
"If the curve does not flatten out, we will not hold up"
In the rooms served by a long corridor, we (still) come across non-Covid patients, like Philippe, a 62-year-old Norman who has just received a new lung and displays a grateful smile.
“Fortunately, the operation has taken place now, and not in a few weeks when the virus will be everywhere and care will be deprogrammed,” says, relieved, his wife Véronique.
Others, like this staring man, were admitted with a heart problem, but the PCR test came back positive.
"It complicates things", recognizes Brigitte Tétard.
Like her colleagues, this experienced nurse is aware of this: contrary to what happened during the first epidemic wave, there will be no reinforcements from other regions, which in turn are busy countering the mad rush of the coronavirus. .
After Marseille, Paris, Lille, or even Lyon, it is Toulouse and Montpellier which switch this Tuesday to the maximum alert zone.
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VIDEO. Second wave: "Generalized reconfinement must be avoided", Castex alert
“We are starting a latent war that will last six months and many are going backwards.
The staff is exhausted, it does not have the same ardor, notes Professor Jean-François Timsit, 57 years old, "even more" since the crisis has added worry and weight to his good-natured air.
If the epidemic curve does not flatten out, he continues, we will not hold out, we will do the best with the means at hand, which probably means not very well.
The population now sees us as a nuisance, but we are doing this for them.
Me neither, I don't like canceling my family's birthday parties.
"
Lower mortality compared to spring
Whether in units 1, 2 or 3, the caregivers evoke their dismay in the face of barrier gestures "which are unraveling", as Fatiha Essardy, the health manager, says.
Does she "really" find that people aren't paying attention?
It is Florence, the nurse with 27 years of service who answers: "Come with me for a walk around the hospital, you will see, she defies, I would become a sociopath, I who live like a nun since March.
“She loves her job more than anything, but her obsession is invited into her worst nightmares: forgetting her mask when going to treat a patient.
Slack shots, Fatiha Essardy also knows: she will then take a look at a table filled with photos of cured patients.
Like Florence, many caregivers are worried about a loosening of barrier gestures. / LP / Arnaud Dumontier
It is 5:32 pm, a man decompensates, the teams are gathering the equipment to proceed with his intubation.
This invasive act is no longer legion.
If we compare with the situation in March-April, the contrast in the resuscitations is striking.
At the time, we had seen a majority of patients placed in artificial coma, intubated, turned over on their stomach to relieve pulmonary pressure.
This time they are mostly conscious, can sometimes talk or shave - like Jan - are less dependent on heavy equipment.
And this, in particular, thanks to corticosteroids and to a better knowledge of the disease.
The result is astounding, here the mortality has gone from "35-38% to 10-15%" according to the department head.
The other side of the coin, points out a caregiver: “More awake, patients feel more the anxiety of being locked up, of uncertainty about the evolution of their disease.
"
"I'm lost, it's hard," Sandra stammers, trembling and sobbing, leaving the room of Claudine, her 85-year-old mother, probably infected during a gymnastics class.
"She is hypercostaud, but the fight is unequal against the virus", she confides to us.
His father was also infected, and is hospitalized in another department, in infectious diseases.
"My job is not to let myself down"
The first week of illness Jan had only felt a slight fatigue - not enough to stop telecommuting.
On the seventh day, the fever rose so much that his brain “didn't hit” anything.
The continuation, a call to the Samu, an arrival in the emergency room, an admission in intensive care.
"Immediately, I thought intubation, but fortunately, the caregivers practice it less", reassures the forty-something.
Slowly, he regains his strength, but going from his bed to the chair remains "an ordeal".
“Each day is a new step not to be broiled,” he notes.
My job is not to let myself down.
"So to those who put the situation into perspective, Jan replies by pointing his chin at his hospital room:" We obviously don't live on the same planet.
"